"Or should I destroy myself at her side, and leave our bodies to tell a frightful tale of mystery and horror? The miserable terrors of my associate would of itself have prevented this catastrophe. I had to reassure and protect him. "My resolution was quickly made not to outlive my victim--and, making atonement by my death, what other penalty could I be called upon to pay? But my death should not be a tale to appal or amuse the vulgar, or to swell with triumph the heart of Alithea's tyrant husband. Secrecy and oblivion should cover all. My plan was laid, and I acted accordingly. "Osborne entered into the design with alacrity. He was moved by other feelings, he was possessed by an agony of fear; he did not doubt but that we should be accused of murdering the hapless lady, and the image of the gallows flitted before his eyes. "Understanding each other without many words, Osborne said that in the shed where we had placed the horses he had remarked a spade; it was so early that no one was about to observe him, and he went to fetch it. He returned in about half an hour; I sat keeping watch the while by the dead, and feasted my eyes with the sight of my pale victim as she lay at my feet. Of what tough materials is man formed, that my heart-strings did not break, and that I outlived that hour! "Osborne returned, and we went to work. Some ten yards above high-water mark there was a single leafless, moss-grown, skeleton tree, with something like soil about its roots, and sheltered from the spray and breeze by the vicinity of a sand-hill; close to it we dug a deep grave. I placed the cushions in it on which her fair form, all warm and soft, had reposed, during the preceding night. Then I composed her stark limbs, banding the long wet tresses of her abundant hair across her eyes, for ever closed, crossing her hands upon her pure, death-cold bosom; I touched her reverently--I did not even profane her hand by a kiss; I wrapped her in her cloak, and laid her in the open grave. I tore down some of the decaying boughs of the withered tree, and, arching them above her body, threw my own cloak above, so with vain care to protect her lifeless form from immediate contact with the soil. Then we filled up the grave, and, scattering dry sand above, removed every sign of recent opening. This was performed in silence, or with whispered words--the roaring waves were her knell, the rising sun her funeral torch; I was satisfied with the solemnity of the scene around, and I was composed, for I was resolved on death. Osborne trembled in every limb, and his face rivalled in hue her wan, bloodless countenance.